KARACHI, May 15: The Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, one of the oldest medical teaching and research institutes of the country, has produced 20 PhD and about 642 MPhil graduates in basic medical sciences in 46 years.

Had the centre been provided with more resources and research supervisors and allowed to increase its research programmes, it would have added more graduates to the corps of PhDs and MPhil who are working as specialists and researchers in the public and private sector establishments in the country, said a senior professor.

The JPMC is affiliated with the University of Karachi for PhD and MPhil programmes.

Among the 642 MPhil degree recipients during the last four decades, 137 were women.

The highest number of MPhil students (i.e. 132) did their dissertation in the subject of pathology, followed by 119 in microbiology, 115 in biochemistry, 97 in anatomy, 94 in pharmacology and 85 in physiology.

A maximum of 22 MPhil graduates passed each year in 1963, 1999, 2000 and 2001.

Ten graduates did PhD in biochemistry, six in pathology, three in microbiology and one in anatomy.

A senior faculty member said the policy on research students’ admission, which came into effect 35 to 40 years back, needed to be reviewed in order to facilitate more research students coming from various parts of the country.

Tracing the history of MPhil and PhD programmes at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Prof Khemomal Karira, head of biochemistry department, said higher medical education at the JPMC was started with the establishment of Basic Medical Sciences Institute in 1959.

This was the first institute of its kind in the government sector in the country where teachers from medical colleges received advanced training in their specialities leading to MPhil and PhD degrees, he added.